Monday, October 5, 2015

Carrying a Gun Responsibly

Carrying a gun comes with grave responsibility and grave
consequences. Proper use of a firearm results in serious injury or death.
Unless you are prepared to take a life, do not carry a gun.

What carrying a gun is not about:

It’s not about fun.

It’s not about politics.

It’s not about appearance.

It is all about safety and self-defense. Every right has
responsibilities.

The Legal Aspects

Even in the most 2nd Amendment and self-defense
friendly jurisdictions, there will be a thorough investigation of the shooting.
The police and district attorney will have to determine if the shooting was
justified; that you were in fear for your life and lethal force was justified
in those circumstances. You will be interviewed by the police, sometimes
interrogated. Your experience will be dictated by the attitudes in the law
enforcement/judicial community in your area as well as your own attitude and
character.

After a shooting, you may be detained or arrested, subjected
to a lengthy interview at the police station (remember your rights to silence
and counsel), grand jury hearings, a possible criminal charges, a trial, or
even a lawsuit from the attacker or their family.

Knowledge of the law is vital. Carrying a weapon in certain
places is a crime and you must know when you are legally justified in taking a
life. This is why training that includes marksmanship, weapon handling,
firearm/justifiable homicide laws, and safety is vital.

You must accept that misuse of a firearm could result in a
trial, right or wrong, and large legal costs. Attorneys don’t come cheap, so you
may want to look into buying self-defense legal insurance. Your name may be
sullied and your life scrutinized in the press (George Zimmerman, for example).
You could face a long, expensive and stressful process defending yourself or
clearing your name.

If you cannot accept that you might have to fight harder
after the shooting than during the attack, carrying probably isn’t for you.

Why do you carry?

Carrying a gun, particularly open carry, is not for
political or attention getting purposes. The fact that unlicensed carry exists
is not permission for anyone to strap on a gun for any reason. The right to
bear arms exists for self-defense and not self-aggrandizement.

Carrying a gun is not cool. It doesn’t make you look tough.
It certainly doesn’t abrogate your responsibility to stay aware of your
surroundings and scrupulously avoid danger.

Open carry does have some instances where it is politically
advantageous (i.e. carrying a long-gun at a 2nd Amendment rally). In
Texas, open carriers shouldered and slung their rifles, to make the point that
open carry of handguns (banned for over 150 years) be decriminalized. This is
known as hyperbole, where taking things to the extreme to illustrate a point is
used. Unfortunately, with some choosing inopportune times and places to carry
(recall the Chipotle ninjas) combined with controversial and idiotic members of
the Open Carry Texas movement, this unleashed a furious backlash against open
carry. This put the future of open carry in Texas, in doubt, and ultimately
relegating it to licensed open carry only (beginning Jan. 1, 2016).

Nevada Carry does not support open carry of long-guns
because they can and do intimidate the non-shooting public and are generally
unsuitable for everyday self-defense. Short of widespread rioting, carrying an
AR-15 to the grocery store is wholly unnecessary.

Behavior counts

When you carry a gun, good gun etiquette and firearm safety
has to be observed at all times. As mentioned above, it’s not a game or to look
cool. If you want to show off, buy some new sneakers, a watch, or a car.

Far too many people have been killed when someone shows off
a new gun. Gunplay causes death. Guns are not toys and are not intended to be
shown off and manipulated like a neat little gadget. Guns are intended to kill
and wound humans and animals. If you are the type to goof around with a gun or
show it off, especially when drinking, you have no business carrying a gun or
probably even owning one.

Restraint and discretion

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” we’re told.
Sometimes, running away is the best option, even though in Nevada, you have no
duty to retreat (stand your ground, or, at home, the Castle Doctrine). Your
first instinct should be to avoid dangerous situations and if you find yourself
in one, your second instinct should be to get safety away. If you can’t safely
get away, you have to know when to fight and how to do it effectively.

Author Robert Heinlein once wrote that: “An armed society is
a polite society.” Not really, but the idea is that if everyone is armed,
people are less likely to be insulting, rude, or pick fights because the
consequences are greater. If you carry a gun, you can’t start fights, mouth
off, or be rude. It’s like saying: “If you’re rude to me, I’ll shoot you.”
Illegal and stupid.

If anything, the saying is backwards. Being 'polite'—having
a shared set of values that includes placing a high value on peaceful civic
discourse—is a necessary pre-condition for the arming of a society. Arms in a
'polite' society remain the tools of good citizens to defend themselves against
bad ones. But arming a society without those shared values is a recipe for
chaos, for violence for, well, Somalia, Beirut, Pakistan et al.

'An armed society is a polite society' sounds cute. It
sounds witty and cool. It impresses all
the gun enthusiasts on the bulletin boards. It makes for a great t-shirt to
wear at the gun show. But it’s just not true and if it was, it would be a
bigger argument against arming ordinary citizens than anything the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence could possibly devise."

If you carry a gun, you can’t start fights, mouth off, or be
rude. Why? Because if your poor behavior starts a physical confrontation that
leads to you shooting someone, you will likely be considered the aggressor and
faced with a murder charge.

Fighting isn’t such a good idea when armed. So in one
respect, the responsibility of a gun might make someone who would ordinarily
return a harsh word or accept a challenge to fight walk away instead. The NRS
also requires that in cases of justifiable homicide, the slayer must not be the
original aggressor, and even if they did 'start the fight', the slayer had
really, and in good faith, endeavored to decline any further struggle before
the mortal blow was given (NRS 200.120
and NRS
200.200). So basically, you can’t start a fight and then claim to kill
someone in self-defense. So much for enforcing politeness at the point of a
gun.

Can’t I just show them
my gun and ‘scare’ them away? Let’s hope it goes that way. Most defensive
gun uses don’t involve shootings, but rather the attacker flees when faced with
armed opposition. But that won’t always work. A gun might not scare some
criminals and they might be armed themselves. Think of all the criminals who
attack or shoot at police officers; are they deterred by the officer’ gun?

Showing someone a gun to ‘scare’ them is brandishing. Brandishing
is defined as drawing a deadly weapon in a threatening manner, not in lawful
self-defense.NRS 202.320It's also a crime to aim a firearm at someone outside of
lawful self-defense.NRS 202.294

A gun should only be drawn when in fear for life and only
aimed at a person if there is already legal justification for using lethal
force. Furthermore, pointing a gun at a bad guy may cause them to react
violently, either out of anger at you or to save their life. Only carry and
pull a gun if you are willing to use it. Do you always have to shoot someone?
No, but if the gun leaves its holster, you need to be justified in doing so and
that means a threat to life.

What if deadly force is not required? Will you shoot someone
because they try to pick a fight or they insult you? Waiving a gun around
during a road-rage incident or to intimidate someone is wrong on so many
different levels. If you can’t control your temper or your mouth, you probably
can’t control your gun. Do you regularly get into fights? Don’t carry.

Personal implications

Carrying a gun is for self-defense. Self-defense with a gun
means killing. While one should always shoot to stop the threat, gunshot wounds
frequently cause death. There is no “shooting to wound” and shooting guns out
of hands or hitting only arms and legs are Hollywood myths or solely the domain
of unbelievably good sharpshooters—which you probably aren’t.

Do you understand that using a gun properly will likely kill
someone? Can you accept that fact and carry responsibly? Let’s say you shot and
wounded your attacker. He is bleeding to death, screaming horribly, shouting
lies about how you attacked him with no provocation (when the opposite is
true), and you are surrounded by a large, angry mob. Can you handle that
situation?

Can you fight and are you willing to fight? That is, once
the attack has begun and your gun is up, can you pull the trigger, or will you
freeze? If you freeze, you’re dead. You may even be disarmed and killed with
your own gun. A gun is no use to you if you do not have the will to use it.

It may take several shots or more to stop the threat. Some
attackers have been known to fight on, despite being shot a dozen times or
more. It’s not like Hollywood’s magic bullets that kill with one shot; James
Bond’s Golden Gun is not real. What if you miss? Can you re-assess and
re-engage? What if the situation de-escalates from lethal force? Can you fight
hand to hand or use less-lethal defensive weapons like pepper spray?

Many police officers, soldiers, and citizens who have killed
righteously face incredible emotional problems. Human life is sacred—God
designed us that way. Killing is not to be taken lightly and even the most
justified shooting will result in emotional complications for all but the most
hardened or sociopaths. You will face the stress of the immediate aftermath,
any legal implications, your friends’ or family’s reaction, and your own mind.
PTSD is a serious concern. Can you handle the emotional/mental effects of a
shooting?

Hero complex

Do you have a hero complex? George Zimmerman is the perfect
example; as the leader of the neighborhood watch and once expressing an
interest in law enforcement, it’s very plausible that he was self-policing his
neighborhood. An attitude that he had to challenge suspicious persons may have
been what precipitated his altercation with Trayvon Martin and led to the
tragic outcome. You are not a cop so don’t act like one.

You carry to save yourself, your loved ones, and those
immediately around you. Trying to stop the casino or restaurant from being
robbed is none of your business. Recall the man who fired
a warning shot into the ceiling of Red Lobster in Las Vegas; he’s lucky no
one was hurt and that the robber fled. What if that shot him someone or the
robber decided that the ‘good Samaritan’ was a threat?

Carrying comes down to these factors: intent, attitude,
responsibility, and safety. If you feel iffy about any of these things, keep
your cell phone handy and your gun at home.